Virtue - a Fairy Tale (13 page)

“You don’t want to waste time on me,” Avaritia said hastily. “She’s with him now. Or at least she’s almost there. Last I heard, they were almost to Valefor’s lair.”

“I told you that he didn’t know anything,” Wick said from behind them. He glanced back over his shoulder, where she looked utterly unimpressed by his display.

“And I still have your wand,” Lux told her, and then turned his attention back to Avaritia. “Where is she?”

“I already told you all I know!” Avaritia squirmed, and Lux pushed hard on the wand, piercing his skin just slightly. “Kill me if you want, Lux, but it won’t help you. It won’t save her.”

“We don’t have time for this,” Wick reminded him, and Lux relented.

He stepped back from Avaritia, who immediately smoothed back his hair and began straightening out his clothes.

“Here.” Lux handed the wand back to Wick. “I had to be sure that he didn’t know anything.”

“You’ve completely lost it.” Avaritia shook his head as he re-buttoned his jacket. “Valefor’s going to destroy you when he finds you, and I’m going to laugh.”

Lux considered going after Avaritia and really teaching him a lesson, but Wick was right. They didn’t have time to waste. If Avaritia didn’t know anything, then they didn’t have any reason to interact with him anymore. Avaritia left, slinking out the front door the same way he had come in.

Wick gathered up a few more things they might use on their journey, and then she and Lux ventured out in the night, into the Necrosilvam.

12

The last quarter of a mile, Ira had tired of fighting her, so he simply dragged Lily on the ground behind him. He bound her hands and tied a rope around her ankles, so he could pull her along. She’d wailed like a banshee after he’d taken care of Lux, and for the first hour or so, she’d sobbed and hit at him with her puny fists.

Eventually, she wore herself down, but she’d never completely gave up. No matter what he did to her or what he threatened her with, Lily never stopped fighting him or vowing to avenge Lux. Ira had never actually seen anyone fight that long or hard before, not in the face of such a clear obstacle.

When he got to the mote surrounding Valefor’s lair, he picked her up and slung her over his shoulder. She wriggled a bit, but her body was battered and bruised from being raked across the ground. She too worn down to do much more than that, and it would be easier if he carried her.

Valefor’s lair rose high in the sky, a burnt crimson tower that looked as mangled and twisted as a unicorn horn. It was made of rocks and magma, carved many centuries ago, and it had quite obviously seen its share of battles and fires.

Avaritia, who’d always had a taste for the finer things in life, once asked Valefor why he didn’t move or at least fix his crumbling tower. Valefor said he liked it better that way. The more destroyed it got, the more it reminded him of home. After that, Avaritia didn’t ask any more questions, because he hated to be reminded of where Valefor really came from, where he and all the other peccati would someday reside.

On the other hand, Ira looked forward it. No place on Earth felt more comfortable to him that Valefor’s lair. Here the smell of brimstone was so strong, Lily couldn’t ignore it. Ira had tied a gag in her mouth to silence her, and she coughed around it as she breathed in the scent.

Her hair fell over her face, so she couldn’t see where they were going. She could only see the ground below Ira’s feet as it shifted from dirty wood to the murky water of the moat and finally to the worn black stones of the tower floor.

She heard Ira talking to the guards at the door, their voices booming and inhuman. The language they spoke sounded vaguely like her own, but she couldn’t really understand it.

Lily tried to look around, searching for any landmarks to tell her where she was, so she could make her escape when the time came. She didn’t know if Lux was alive or dead, but she would do everything she could to return to him, even if it was only to bury him.

What little she could see of the walls did not look pleasant. They were covered in scratches and splashes of red that looked suspiciously like blood.

Stranger still, the longer Ira walked, the warmer she got. The hallway they were in seemed to go on forever, then she heard a heavy door groan open. The heat hit her so hard, it felt like she was going into an oven. In fact, she’d become convinced that Ira meant to cook and eat her.

She fought harder against him, kicking at him with what little strength she had left. Her whole body ached when she moved, and even though she hated to admit it, she knew she didn’t have that much fight left in her.

Ira dropped her onto the ground with a painful thud, and she immediately scrambled to sit up. The room wasn’t an oven, as she’d expected to see, but rather, it appeared to be some kind of chambers.

The walls were dark, stained with ash like the chimneys at her palace. A long fire place ran along one wall, its fire blazing, but somehow, the room felt dim. It was furnished with several chairs and a long table, all of them made out of the black lava rock, so they seemed to glisten in the light of the flames.

“I’m going to take the gag from your mouth,” Ira said, bending down in front of her. “But if you scream, even once, I will knock all the teeth out of your face. Do you understand me?”

Lily sat on the floor, her feet bound underneath, her arms bound behind her back. Her dress was torn and ragged, as was her skin underneath, staining the white fabric red. Dirt and sticks knotted her hair, and it hung in a mess around her face. She stared up at Ira, knowing she had no choice, and grunted her understanding.

He ripped the cloth from her mouth with more force than necessary, and it yanked her painfully.

“Now, what do you say?” Ira asked, smiling down at her.

“What?” Lily asked, glaring up at him. “You expect me to thank you? I will spit on your grave before I thank you, and then and only then will I thank you for doing the world the service of leaving it.”

“Get it all out of your system,” he said, only smiling wider. “Because when my master gets here, you won’t get away with it. He’ll make you wish you had died back there with your boyfriend.”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” she told him, raising her chin defiantly. “I will get free, and when I am, you will be the one that wishes you had died back there.”

“Such big threats from such a tiny girl,” Ira chuckled. “Valefor is going to eat you up.” He laughed again, then turned and started walking toward the door.

“Where are you going?” Lily asked.

“As much as I’d love to see what the master has in store for you, I have other business to attend to,” Ira said as he opened the door. “But don’t worry. He won’t keep you waiting much longer.”

Ira laughed again, then shut the door loudly behind him, leaving Lily sitting alone in the middle of the room. It was so hot that her skin had become slick with sweat, but that could work to her advantage. She wriggled her wrists, trying to get them free.

She’d just about gotten one hand loose when the door on the other side of the room opened, and she lifted her head to see Valefor walk inside.

13

The creatures in the Necrosilvam usually didn’t mess with Wick anymore. They had learned that it was pointless, but even she wasn’t prepared for how quiet the forest could be when she walked with Lux. Around him, nothing made a sound.

It occurred to her that he was the most powerful thing in the forest. That was only because of who his master was, and she wondered if she was doing the right thing in teaming up with him. She knew she had to rescue Lily. She owed Iris that much. And if that meant working with a servant of Valefor, then so be it.

The sun was starting to rise over the Necrosilvam as they reached the edge of it. The light allowed them to get a better view of how far they’d really gone, and how far they had left to go. Lux had started out leading the way, but as they walked on, he’d started to lag.

At first, Wick thought it was because he was purposely trying to sabotage the rescue mission and slow them down. But eventually she realized that he wasn’t as healed as he’d claimed to be. Ira’s attack had left him favoring his right leg, and she slowed a bit.

“Why don’t we take a break for a minute?” Wick suggested.

“No.” Lux shook his head forcefully and pushed on. “We have to keep going.”

“Not at the pace we’re going.” She stopped, and he took a few steps forward before looking back. “Sit for a minute. I have some ringa root that I can put on your leg. It will help you so we can go faster.”

He paused for a minute, considering it before nodding reluctantly. Lux took a step back toward her and sat down on a large boulder. She knelt before him and rummaged through her bag. Wick pulled out a gnarled bright orange root, the root of a ringa plant. It had strong healing properties, which is why she’d brought it along. She’d meant to use it if they got hurt in a fight, but she needed to use it now, if they wanted to get there quickly.

“Roll up your pants,” Wick commanded, and Lux did as he was told.

Lumps of bone were malformed under his skin, bulging out below the knee. His bones hadn’t set themselves right where Ira had broken them.

Without warning him, Wick pulled out her knife and sliced open his leg above the bump. Lux howled and swore under his breath.

“You could’ve let me know you were doing that,” Lux grimaced.

“Sorry,” Wick said without emotion. She snapped open the ringa root and held it over his fresh wound, letting the orange juice drip inside so it could do its work.

The juice began to sooth his pain, and Lux relaxed a bit. Wick pulled a rag out of her bag and pressed it to his leg, holding the liquid inside.

“It will take a few minutes for it to work fully,” Wick said.

“Thank you,” Lux said, and Wick looked up at him when she realized he’d meant it. She’d never heard of a peccati saying a kind word.

“How are you like this?” Wick asked, not hiding the awe and confusion in her voice.

“Like what?” He leaned back a bit on the rock and met her baffled gaze evenly.

“Kind. How can you be kind?”

“I …” He didn’t really know the answer, so he sighed and shook his head.

“How did you end up working for Valefor?”

“That was a very long time ago,” Lux said, as if it answered the question.

“You chose to, though,” Wick clarified. “You chose to do this, to be the luxuria.”

“Yes.” He nodded and lowered his eyes.

“Why?” Wick asked. “Why would anyone willingly choose to be in the service of something so evil?”

“It’s not that simple.” Lux shook his head again.

He didn’t like the way Wick looked at him, so he moved her hands and tried to stand up. His leg wasn’t fully healed, but it felt better, and it could heal as he walked. Wick stayed crouched down for a moment, watching him as he walked away, then she got up and followed him.

“I was engaged,” Lux said finally. It’d been so long since either of them had spoken that Wick had nearly forgotten what they were talking about.

“When you were still human, you mean?” Wick asked when she realized what he meant.

“Yes,” he nodded. “I was the Prince of a very large kingdom, the only son, and I was set to inherit it all. My father had arranged a marriage with the daughter of a neighboring kingdom, so we could join them and become nearly unstoppable.”

“Who were you engaged to?” Wick asked.

“I’ve forgotten her name,” he sighed. “That’s the horrible truth of it. I forgot about her long ago. But she had a younger sister, Saphron.” He paused for a moment and licked his lips. “I fell in love with Saphron nearly the instant I met her. I tried to convince my father to let me marry her instead, but she was already betrothed to another.”

Lux stepped carefully over the brambles of the Necrosilvam, and Wick noticed that his gait was almost back to normal. The ringa root was working quickly on him.

“And Saphron loved me in return,” Lux went on. “Somehow, I think that made it worse. We began an affair together, and we did our best to keep it secret, but eventually her sister found out. I’d expected her to call off the wedding, but she did something worse.”

“Worse?”

“She banished Saphron and insisted we go on with the wedding,” Lux said. “I was irate and heartbroken, but my fiancée wanted to rule the most powerful kingdom, and she wouldn’t let a thing like love stand in her way. So in retribution, I decided to live a life of debauchery. I slept with everyone I could.”

“You couldn’t be with the one you loved, so you decided to sleep with every girl in the kingdom?” Wick asked dubiously.

“I was young, rich, and spoiled,” he shrugged. “I didn’t know how else to act out. And really, all I wanted was for her to call off the wedding. By the time she finally did, the entire kingdom knew of my exploits. They were legendary.”

Wick scoffed, and Lux stopped and turned back to face her.

“I’m not proud of what I did or who I was, but I won’t make any apologies for it, either,” he said.

“I never asked you to.” Wick returned his gaze evenly. “But you still haven’t told me how you came to work for Valefor.”

“After the wedding was called off, my father banished me,” Lux sighed. “I’d ruined the greatest deal of his life, and he was pissed off. Not that I blame him. I was homeless and penniless. I tried to look for Saphron, but I couldn’t find her.

“And then, Valefor found me.” Lux turned and started walking again. “He’d heard of my conquests, and he offered me a job. I had no other prospects. No other talents other than an ability to drink, spend money, and seduce women, and that was exactly what he wanted me to do. So I took it.”

“But it’s not a job,” Wick said. “It’s more than a job. You become something else.”

They’d reached the edge of the Necrosilvam, at the Weeping Waters. Lux stared out at the murky water, more quicksand than true liquid. It bubbled and oozed, and he knew the kind of monsters that lived inside of it, ones that weren’t threatened by mere peccati.

“Maybe you don’t,” Lux said finally, still staring out at the swamp. “Maybe Valefor only wants you to think you lose your heart and your humanity.”